Embrace
by Beckon
Summary: Maybe it was the bypass of fear now… maybe it was because he was no longer the monster she had once considered him to be. Oneshot.


_Keep moving forward; don't look back…_

They were slow, calculating steps that brought her closer and closer to him. She was mindful of where she stepped as the ground had been dressed and littered with the remains of… something; broken, torn pieces no longer resembled something even close to being human, they didn't even give off the imaginative impression of a human form. The images were almost ignored the moment they came into sight as she found herself more involved with another figure.

She paused briefly at the sight of what looked to be the emaciated remains of a wing; the bone-like structure cut cleanly at one end as blood eased itself out of the dying tissue and rotting cells. But she pushed herself to continue on to the other end of the would have been battlefield, newly crowned slaughterhouse. Her eyes hooked on the slightly hunched over figure that remained just a few yards away from her. The battered form of what remained no longer startled her courage and no longer frightened the color from her skin; she didn't feel that once familiar light-headedness and her body didn't involuntarily ache anymore. Maybe it was the bypass of fear now… maybe it was because he was no longer the monster she had once considered him to be.

Blood rushed out of the gaping holes in his back and dripped soundlessly to the ground below him. One of the holes seemed to have been a mere, skinning strike as partial bone fragments stuck free from where the wing had once been suited. The other… was more of a dipping gap that showed where the bone had been dislocated and completely ripped free; taking strips of muscle and nerves with it as strings of the two hung out of the wound. Bloodied muscle walls showed signs of irritation as they swelled together; pulsing with a sickening throb as a newly formed inflammation spread across his back. She didn't know how someone had managed to forcibly remove both of his wings but it couldn't have been easy and it couldn't have been painless.

Kneeling down in front of him, she watched as he barely seemed to recognize her appearance; his body too focused on the sharp pants that heaved from his chest. There were a few more trickles of blood that dripped to the ground but the sources were currently tucked away from sight… something she wasn't entirely happy with. Her hands moved to rest over his own; fingers moving between the lightly curled placement of his as she took to the broken nails that bled from his fingertips. She leaned in lightly and pressed her forehead against his own, softly coaxing him to look back up to her just the same. It was a moment of stillness as she could still feel the heat of the battle in his skin; feeling the flush of his body as it winded down from the sweat and blood spill. It was a stilling moment as she listened to the gradual silence of his breathing slowing down, bringing itself back under control as though rejecting the presence of battle-torn wounds that infected his flesh.

One hand moved lightly to touch at the curve of his blistered jawline; feeling the bloodied socket of where his hollow piece had once been present before it was ripped from the flesh. The gentle flat of her thumb just barely brushed the swollen, bruised skin around his eye; feeling the way it had already swelled with fluids and hardened the skin to the touch. The amount of blood that escaped out between the press of his eyelids said that the eye itself had either been ruptured, punctured or completely removed. She wouldn't know for certain until she dressed his wounds but for now she knew he wouldn't let her get much closer to it than she already was.

"Why do I let you do this?" she softly questioned; gently running her thumb back and forth across the non-massacred part of his cheek.

His remaining eye opened slightly at the remark and he briefly moved his skinned lips back into a small upturn. "Because I don't give you any other choice; I do all of this for you…"

She watched as the beautiful shade of Amber that had always made his eyes alluring and unique was now stained with the broken vessels of blood that smeared across his iris. "I always ask you why and you give me the same answer every time…"

"Sometimes I wonder if you fully understand the words I give you each time." he started; moving his hand to mimic her own as he cupped part of her cheek in his palm. "You belong to me… no one's going to even bring up the proposition of opposition to that; one word is all I give, after that, it's just one life. I can't risk losing you."

"But yet, you risk losing yourself for me."

"Yes."

Fingers moved to lightly touch at the back of his neck before she pulled him forward; feeling the gentle rush of the harsh texture of his lips brush over her own. "And just in perfect imitation, I can't risk losing you either… so where does that leave us, Aporro?"

"It doesn't matter where, Kurotsuchi; I just want you by my side for as long as I can keep you."

**A/N: I think I honestly spend too much time on youtube and get influenced by far too much music. I also don't think I've written enough of this couple. More to come soon enough.**


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